A Green Heart
by Michael Bradley-Robbins
Summary: Ever since the moodulator debacle, Shego has been secretly wishing she was more than Drakken's sidekick.


As she sat reclining in Drakken's favorite chair, Shego stared at the fingernails on her normally gloved left hand. In her right hand she held a file, and she meticulously manicured her nails to try and pass the time. "Ugh," she griped, "I am so bored!"

In the time she'd been working for Dr. Drakken, the only things that had given her pleasure were fighting her nemesis, Kim Possible, and vacation time, which she hardly ever got. The monotony of stealing various devices and components for Drakken was finally catching up to her and she resented ever teaming up with him. She even surprised herself when she decided that she missed her four brothers, Hego, Mego, and Wego (Wego was a collective name for the twins). She sighed once again and blew the filings off her nails, and pulled her gloves back on.

She picked up the latest issue of the Hench Co. catalog and thumbed through it for the hundredth time, brushing her eyes past all of the various devices of villainy that one could imagine—and some that one couldn't. She reached the end and flipped to the beginning again as the frustration built within her. When her boredom could no longer be held back she cast the catalog aside with a growl, and jumped out of the chair and paced anxiously around. "Where are you, Dr. D.?" she muttered. Drakken had promised to return before six, and the hour was rapidly approaching.

"Shego, I'm back," announced a voice from the lair's entrance.

"Finally!" she nearly roared. "You won't _believe_ how bored I was!"

"Shego, don't be so crass. I was only gone for four hours."

Her chest heaved and her hands glowed as her blood boiled with rage at his condescending comment. A deep, throaty growl ascended from inside her, and she had to clench her jaw to prevent herself from killing the doctor, so she forced herself to calm down. "I had nothing to do," she explained through her clenched teeth. "It was worse than prison."

"Oh, don't give me that." She let out a gust of frustrated breath and turned to walk away. "Come on, Shego," he urged. "I've got some juicy new plans for—"

She continued to walk away. "Plans, schmans. They never work anyway."

"But—"

"This time it'll work? Fat chance, as long as Kim Possible is there to get in our way." She heard footsteps and knew he was following her, but she didn't care; nothing could stop her from spiraling downward into depression. As she closed her eyes, a tiny tear fell and hit the ground, only to be crushed underfoot. "I'll be in my room." She opened her door and entered the stonewalled room that she had decorated with her favorite colors, green and black. She slammed the door behind her, and leaned against it, sinking to the ground as she buried her head in her hands. _Could it be time to throw in the towel?_ she thought, dreading such heresy.

Her mind replayed every single time Kim had defeated her. Each unwilling reminiscence was paired with Drakken's signature parting shot: "You think you're all that, but you're not!" Over and over again the words swam through her head, fogging her mind and pulling her further into a void of nothingness. After she could stand no more she looked up and her hands suddenly felt moist. She looked down at them and saw that tears had darkened the green of the glove that covered her left hand. Afraid of her own feelings, she dried her gloves out with a quick burst of her power, and lay on her bed.

A soft knock came on the door, and Drakken's voice said, "Shego, it's—"

"Go away!" she ordered.

"I just thought some—"

"I said go away!"

"Is there anything I can do to cheer you up?"

She sat up on the bed and stared at the door. There was something he could do, but she was far too afraid to ask for it, as she knew he wouldn't go along with it at all. "Nothing," she answered, and then fell back on the bed.

"Can I get you anything?"

"I'll tell you what you can do. You can go take a flying leap." He muttered something in reply but she ignored it and rolled onto her side, trying to catch up on some much-missed sleep. She closed her eyes and drifted off.

_She saw herself in a crowded restaurant with Drakken, and was amazed to find herself wearing a dress, something she had done only a handful of times before. A menu was thrust into her ungloved hands and she read off an order to the waiter. After Drakken had ordered and the waiter had left, they joined hands and he leaned across the table. A split second before their lips met the vision faded._

Shego woke up screaming in terror. She slapped her face to try and get a hold of herself, and glanced at the bedside clock. "Two thirty?" she thought aloud as she gasped in attempt to catch her breath. "I'm late for…." She trailed off. She wasn't late for anything; her schedule was filled with Drakken's agenda, and she hadn't had any of her own appointments since… "Stevie," she muttered with a sigh. "Why did you have to sing that O Boyz song? Couldn't you have just come by with the flowers like a normal guy?" She once again flopped back onto the bed, and made herself forget the past and sleep.

* * *

She awoke with an unwelcome headache, no doubt brought about by tossing and turning in her sleep. She grabbed her head and jerked it sideways, sending a series of dull cracking sounds reverberating off the walls. _That's better_, she thought as she let out a sigh of relief. She stretched as she stood, and opened the door to the sound of a ratchet wrench being cranked back and forth. "Morning, Dr. D.," she said with a yawn, and then stared at the contraption Drakken was working on. "What's this?"

"I'm building a doomsday device, what do you think?"

"Where did you get it? Did you actually _buy_ something?"

"No, Lucre stopped by this morning and I got him to help me steal it."

"Wait, what time is it?"

"8:25 PM."

"Did I sleep the whole day?"

"You were obviously having some problems, so I let you sleep in."

"Problems? I'll tell you who's got a problem!" Her hands glowed green and she brought them up to fire a blast of energy, but something stopped her. The glow around her hands faded. "You know what, I quit."

He dropped his wrench, frozen in place. "What did you say?"

"I don't want to be your sidekick anymore. What part of that do you not understand?"

He turned and looked at her with shocked eyes. "But…you can't quit."

"And why not?"

"I…."

"Spill it or I'll spill it for ya." She threatened him with a glowing hand.

"Okay, okay! I enjoy your company. You're my only friend and I—"

"Your only friend? What about that Frugal Lucre? You seem to be buddy-buddy with him a lot nowadays."

"I don't really consider him a _friend_, but more of an ally. You, on the other hand—"

She trudged forward and grabbed him by the collar and brought his face close to hers. "Friend? I'm your dependant, for pity sakes! You can't even open a freaking pickle jar without my help!"

Fear filled his eyes. "No, you're a friend! Sure, I depend on you for certain things, but that doesn't change the fact that you've always stuck with me and—"

"I've stuck with you because you were the only one ever to show any interest in me as a person!" She dropped him and her eyes widened with shock as she clamped her hands over her mouth.

"Shego, with all this weird behavior, I'd think you were wearing that mood-altering device again."

This was enough to set her off like a bomb. A blast of green energy surged from her right hand and struck Drakken in the chest, throwing him into his newly built doomsday weapon. "Don't ever bring that up again, do you understand? I can hurt you much more than that." She turned and trudged back to her room, where, now behind closed doors, she could release her angst. She hurled a glowing fist at the wall and formed a basketball-sized hole in the stone. The pain that throbbed in her hand was a grim reminder of her own strength and she shook it out before slamming her fist into the wall once more.

The incident in question involved a pair of mood-altering devices, "moodulators", which had been accidentally attached to Shego and Kim Possible. Kim's friend Ron Stoppable for a video game mistook the controller, and both girls had undergone a horrific stint of uncontrollable mood swings from happy to sad, angry to laughing, and even an extra-long bout of infatuation. After a megalomaniacal attempt to control Kim, Drakken had supercharged the controller with the electro-magneto-accelerator that he had stolen, and had locked the two in an irreversible frenzy of rage.

On Kim's part, Ron broke the frenzy, but it took days for Drakken to finally break Shego out of the nasty tantrum. Even after the fact she still harbored resentment for his delayed action and hiding during her uncontrollable frenzy, and deep down she held the last remaining strings of the infatuation she'd harbored. This was the first time he had brought up the infamous incident since it happened, and it brought her feelings to the surface in a most unpleasant manner.

Her only escape was to hide from the feelings and keep them locked inside, hidden from public view, and to try and forget them. But something always brought them back to her memory, be it a comment, a dream, or even looking at Drakken. When this happened she lost the entire tough, no-nonsense exterior and reputation she had taken so much time to build up.

A knock came on her door. "Shego, what's wrong?" Drakken asked with genuine concern in his voice.

"Nothing," she replied. _I can't go on like this! I'm going to be a freakin' nervous wreck by the time it's all over._ She made up her mind that she would have to tell him what was on it one of these days, but she wanted to put it off as long as possible. "Just let me blow off some steam." She paced back and forth in the room, trying to quash her anger, and she finally succeeded. Restless after sleeping away the whole day, she decided to inspect Drakken's latest device and lend her expertise, so she left the room and approached him. "Whatcha workin' on?" she asked.

"It's a death ray," he replied.

"It doesn't look like one."

"Well, Lucre said it was a death ray."

She walked around the ladder he was standing on and tapped one of the legs supporting the mass of machinery. The body of the death ray rang with a hollow clang. "Are you sure it's got stuff in it?"

"How am I supposed to know?"

She walked around and found an access hatch, and opened the machine hollow on the inside. "I guess Lucre ripped you off; it's just a shell."

"What?" As he leaned over to try and see, he lost his footing and slipped off the ladder, hitting the ground with a thud and a grunt. He poked his head into the hatch, his mouth hanging in disbelief. "But he said it was guaranteed to work," he said sadly.

"Bad news," she replied. "The most damage this thing will do is take up space in your storage unit."

"And that's space I don't have. Shego, we're going to have to find the rest of this thing and get a hold of it."

She rolled her eyes. "Can't we just not steal something for once?"

"You mean _buy_ something? Shego, I'm not made out of money, you know."

"No. Can't we just sit back and not take over the world? After all, you said I was a friend, and friends tend to spend time together."

A nervous look came over him. "Um, what were you planning on?"

"I don't know, watch a movie or something."

"I suppose…. You know, Shego, you've been acting strange lately. Is there some reason or am I just losing my mind?"

"There's a reason," she replied, searching for a way to avoid answering.

"Enlighten me."

She sighed. "Okay, you've noticed how Kim Possible and what's-his-name are dating, right?" He nodded. "Of course you remember the 'moodulator' incident." He nodded again. "Well, ever since then I've been…I don't know how to put this…some of those feelings are still there."

"Uh-oh," he muttered. "That's what I was afraid of."

"Listen, I may not take any crap from anybody, but that doesn't mean I'm heartless."

"No, I never thought that, it's just you were never the mushy, emotional type and it kind of scares me."

"It scares you because you don't really know me. What is my favorite color?"

"Uh, black?"

She held up her glowing right hand. "It's green, you idiot!"

"Oh, come on! How was I supposed to know that?"

She clenched her fists in anger. "That's my point. All this time you've been treating me like a sidekick, and I've been writhing in agony because I have no friends."

"But—"

"Shut up and listen. I've been doing things for you because you don't have the guts or the strength to do it yourself. But it's a one-way deal. In all the time I've been your partner in crime, you haven't done jack squat for me!"

The nervous tone didn't leave Drakken's voice. "Shego, don't get all worked up."

"Too late." She clenched her glowing fists and trudged away from him. "If you won't see that I have a heart, then I mean it this time—I quit!"

"Shego, wait."

"Get a new sidekick." She was poised to walk out the entrance to the lair, but something stopped her, tugging her back. _What am I doing?_ she accosted herself as she slammed her forehead with the palm of her hand. Insecurity mounted as she trudged back into the lair, hugging herself with one arm while she let the other hang.

Despite her shuffling feet, she was unnoticed in her approach, and her eyes grew wide as she saw Drakken holding a small, framed picture, staring at it with downcast eyes. The woman centered in the picture wasn't his mother, as one might expect, but Shego. A deep sigh echoed from his mouth and reverberated on the walls of the empty lair, followed by a long moment of silence.

She couldn't bear it any longer, and she broke the awkward, dead silence. "Drakken…I…" He turned around and stared at her, and the look in his eyes nearly brought her to her knees. "I can't bear to leave."

His blue face stared back at hers, a fear in his eyes that she'd never seen before; it wasn't a fear of pain or suffering, but a fear of his own thoughts. "Shego," he explained, "just because I never did anything for you doesn't mean I never loved you as a friend or…even more, but the thing is, I never had the courage to let myself love you. I didn't miss you when you were accidentally turned to good just because I need your help, but because you keep me company when my schemes don't go right, and—"

She bounded forward and nearly tackled him, wrapping him in a tight hug and holding him firmly in it. Slowly, but surely, his arms rose and he squeezed her tightly in return. They stared into each other's eyes and inched closer to each other, their lips finally meeting in a tender kiss.


End file.
